One of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately is the Danger of a Single Story If you click on that link, it'll take you to a tape of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's brilliant TED talk of the same title. Basically, it's this: if all you ever hear about a place is a single story, you'll think the single story is all there is. You'll miss the breadth and depth and realness.
This was on my mind a lot in India, because the Single Story we hear about India is that it's an exotic, hot country full of poor people who live in slums, many of them beggars, many of them dying. As I walked through India I was reminded of this because to some extent you see what you look for. So I did see people living in slums and on the streets in India. But I also know of homeless people in my hometown. I did see a few beggars in India--but not nearly as many as I've seen in San Francisco. Unlike some of my fellow travelers on that trip, I wasn't stunned that people with far less material goods than me could actually be happy. I tried hard to imagine, any time I was a white woman walking through a sea of brown people, what it would be like if I flipped the scene, and was a brown woman walking through a sea of whites.
Then I came home, all spiritual and woke, and did the exact same thing.
Yesterday I stopped at one of the schools where ALI gave out free books last month, to drop off another box of books. (We're awash with books right now. Most of them are in boxes in my mud room, which looks like I'm a hoarder about to be given my own television show.) The principal of the school spoke with me. She's very grateful we gave her students so many books. And she's dismayed, and rightfully so, about the photograph of her school library I put up on this blog a few weeks ago.
The photograph showed nine books, eight of which were older than me. Here are some things about that photograph that are true:
1) I took it in the school library;
2) I didn't stage it--I neither added nor removed books from the shelf.
3) I was appalled by it.
Here are some things that are also true:
1) It was the worst shelf in the library. I wasn't looking for a typical shelf, or a median shelf--I took and posted the very worst one.
2) It's possible (and I admit this didn't occur to me until the principal pointed it out) that part of the reason the shelf looks so awful and out-of-date is that all the modern books that would be shelved there (the principal said Harry Potter would be a prime example) were checked out.
3) This is the most important point: there is more to that school than that bookshelf.
I wanted to illustrate a point about how poverty affects our public school system. I started ALI in the first place because of the glaring discrepancies between the average performance of low-income students and the average performance of their more affluent classmates. (Richer kids are 2 1/2 times more likely to read proficiently than poorer ones.) I started ALI because the way we fund public schools through property taxes makes me crazy, since it means that our schools in poor neighborhoods have far fewer resources than those in rich ones. (If I could change anything about education, it would be this.) I give out books because I know that poorer kids by and large lack access to them, and that this lack of access is a driving factor in their lower reading levels, and, therefore, chances of later success.
But. Showing only one photograph taken at one point in time told one story about this school: poverty. And that isn't the only story.
Six years ago this particular school ranked in the bottom 10% of public schools in the state of Virginia. This year it was rated one of the top 73 public elementary schools in the entire country. Since there are over one thousand elementary schools in Virginia alone, that's quite an achievement. And, during those six years, the amount of funding the school got didn't change. The demographics of the student body (97% free lunch) didn't change. The staff and teachers poured a lot into that school, and did an awful lot of things right, and have made the students' futures immeasurably brighter. That's a more important part of this school's story than the books in the library.
Here's another thing I didn't realize until after I posted that blog and got some responses: people thought that the photograph could only have been taken in a very low-income school in Appalachia. That it was somehow a regional thing.
I wish that were true, because it would make the problem so much smaller. It's not. Those of you who wrote me from around the country--there are schools like this near you. Really there are. A quick glance at Niche.com--San Francisco, a school that's 73% free lunch, 37% reading proficiency. Chicago, near where my son works--82% free lunch, 32% reading proficiency. Tampa: 82% free lunch, 28% reading proficiency.
There are underfunded public schools everywhere. Most of them have almost no budget for new library books. Some of them have no trained librarians. It's a national disgrace, which is the point I was trying to make, albeit imperfectly.
To the students, teachers, and families of the school whose photo I posted: I apologize. I regret misrepresenting you, and I'll try hard not to do it, not only to you but to any school, again.
And also? Despite the hardships you've had to work with, you're reading at 72% proficiency. Y'all are kicking it. I'm glad to know you.
This was on my mind a lot in India, because the Single Story we hear about India is that it's an exotic, hot country full of poor people who live in slums, many of them beggars, many of them dying. As I walked through India I was reminded of this because to some extent you see what you look for. So I did see people living in slums and on the streets in India. But I also know of homeless people in my hometown. I did see a few beggars in India--but not nearly as many as I've seen in San Francisco. Unlike some of my fellow travelers on that trip, I wasn't stunned that people with far less material goods than me could actually be happy. I tried hard to imagine, any time I was a white woman walking through a sea of brown people, what it would be like if I flipped the scene, and was a brown woman walking through a sea of whites.
Then I came home, all spiritual and woke, and did the exact same thing.
Yesterday I stopped at one of the schools where ALI gave out free books last month, to drop off another box of books. (We're awash with books right now. Most of them are in boxes in my mud room, which looks like I'm a hoarder about to be given my own television show.) The principal of the school spoke with me. She's very grateful we gave her students so many books. And she's dismayed, and rightfully so, about the photograph of her school library I put up on this blog a few weeks ago.
The photograph showed nine books, eight of which were older than me. Here are some things about that photograph that are true:
1) I took it in the school library;
2) I didn't stage it--I neither added nor removed books from the shelf.
3) I was appalled by it.
Here are some things that are also true:
1) It was the worst shelf in the library. I wasn't looking for a typical shelf, or a median shelf--I took and posted the very worst one.
2) It's possible (and I admit this didn't occur to me until the principal pointed it out) that part of the reason the shelf looks so awful and out-of-date is that all the modern books that would be shelved there (the principal said Harry Potter would be a prime example) were checked out.
3) This is the most important point: there is more to that school than that bookshelf.
I wanted to illustrate a point about how poverty affects our public school system. I started ALI in the first place because of the glaring discrepancies between the average performance of low-income students and the average performance of their more affluent classmates. (Richer kids are 2 1/2 times more likely to read proficiently than poorer ones.) I started ALI because the way we fund public schools through property taxes makes me crazy, since it means that our schools in poor neighborhoods have far fewer resources than those in rich ones. (If I could change anything about education, it would be this.) I give out books because I know that poorer kids by and large lack access to them, and that this lack of access is a driving factor in their lower reading levels, and, therefore, chances of later success.
But. Showing only one photograph taken at one point in time told one story about this school: poverty. And that isn't the only story.
Six years ago this particular school ranked in the bottom 10% of public schools in the state of Virginia. This year it was rated one of the top 73 public elementary schools in the entire country. Since there are over one thousand elementary schools in Virginia alone, that's quite an achievement. And, during those six years, the amount of funding the school got didn't change. The demographics of the student body (97% free lunch) didn't change. The staff and teachers poured a lot into that school, and did an awful lot of things right, and have made the students' futures immeasurably brighter. That's a more important part of this school's story than the books in the library.
Here's another thing I didn't realize until after I posted that blog and got some responses: people thought that the photograph could only have been taken in a very low-income school in Appalachia. That it was somehow a regional thing.
I wish that were true, because it would make the problem so much smaller. It's not. Those of you who wrote me from around the country--there are schools like this near you. Really there are. A quick glance at Niche.com--San Francisco, a school that's 73% free lunch, 37% reading proficiency. Chicago, near where my son works--82% free lunch, 32% reading proficiency. Tampa: 82% free lunch, 28% reading proficiency.
There are underfunded public schools everywhere. Most of them have almost no budget for new library books. Some of them have no trained librarians. It's a national disgrace, which is the point I was trying to make, albeit imperfectly.
To the students, teachers, and families of the school whose photo I posted: I apologize. I regret misrepresenting you, and I'll try hard not to do it, not only to you but to any school, again.
And also? Despite the hardships you've had to work with, you're reading at 72% proficiency. Y'all are kicking it. I'm glad to know you.
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